Joseph Belbruno Blog

  Italy to ban veils in schools, limit foreign students per class, Meloni says By Reuters September 20, 2026 8:24 PM GMT+8 Updated 1 hour ago Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni leaves after a visit with French President Emmanuel Macron (not seen) at the Picasso Museum as part of a Franco-Italian summit in Antibes, south of... Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab Read more MILAN, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Italy is preparing to ban face coverings in schools and to cap the number of foreign students per class, Prime Minister Giorgia ​Meloni said on Sunday as she played up her right-wing ‌credentials at a youth event organised by her party. Italy is among the European countries most exposed to migrant arrivals because of its central Mediterranean location, making migration a ​hot-button issue and a major challenge for successive governments. The Misinformation Monitor newsletter rounds up international misinformation narratives, with a "Real or Fake?" quiz in every edition. Sig...

  The End of American Exceptionalism? Sept. 20, 2026, 1:00 a.m. ET Credit... Matt Black/Magnum Photos Listen · 10:54 min By Charles A. Kupchan Dr. Kupchan is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the forthcoming “Bringing Order to Anarchy: Governing the World to Come.” America’s days as the exceptional nation seem to be over. At home, President Donald Trump is weakening the foundations of representative government. In the rest of the world, he has set aside democracy promotion and seems more inclined to work with autocracies like China and Russia than with America’s traditional democratic allies. While Mr. Trump’s assault on American democracy is both without precedent and dangerous, he is right to hold off on the promotion of democracy abroad and to reach across ideological dividing lines. Improving relations with China, as Mr. Trump will aim to do at his summit with its leader, Xi Jinpi...

  It’s time to ban the burqa and wrap up our cowardly, poisonous love-in with misogyny Camilla Long The Archbishop of Canterbury presented Imam Hafiz Ashrafi with an “interfaith” award, with his wife, who wore a niqab, and daughter, who was also heavily masked Next image › How do you feel when you see a woman in a burqa? Perhaps you have not seen one in a while. Perhaps you live in Inverness, or the remotest tip of Wales. But in this part of north London, I see them all the time. I may see maybe three or four niqabs on the way to the Tube. On the bus, always. And whenever I see them, I never, ever get over the way that I feel. I feel livid — ragingly angry — like I have to do something about it. But what? To wear a full-length shroud is to be clinically closed off from the world. It is to be placed in a cloth prison. No matter how much you tell me it is religious expression, how the women want it, how it is their choice — to me, it is enforced disability. These women can’t easily r...

  Angela Merkel, not the populist right, was the true extremist of our age History will judge hyperliberals as the vandals who dissolved our borders and ignored Putin’s threat Matthew Syed Matthew Syed Jürgen Klopp has it wrong. The German national team coach (and former Liverpool legend) said in a press conference on Thursday that German national pride had to be reclaimed from the “wrong people”. He didn’t name AfD voters directly but he’s a supersmart guy who (I believe) knew precisely what he was doing and how his words would be taken. Indeed, his comments led the headlines for 48 hours. Let me say at the outset that I count myself as a liberal (in the classical sense). I would not vote for the AfD or their counterparts around the world for reasons I’ll come to. But let me say, frankly, that if Klopp wants to understand extremism, he should not look at these parties but rather the figure who preceded them and whose tenure ended almost precisely five years ago to universal acclai...

  What I saw at the wargames preparing Greenland for Russian invasion Troops from 11 Nato allies were involved in the exercise Saturday September 19 2026, 4.30pm BST , The Sunday Times Listen • 12:53 min T hrough the open side of a Merlin helicopter, I can see a person bobbing in the freezing blue waters of the Arctic, surrounded by icebergs. Two other military helicopters hover alongside us, above glaciers and shattered ice fields on Greenland’s wild southwest coast, for a rescue mission like no other. From a nearby Seahawk, a soldier abseils down, the rotor wash violently rippling the surface of the sea below. They grab the casualty, latch them into place and they are slowly pulled to safety. FORSVARET The mission was a success, but the casualty was not really injured. The rescue was a training exercise for Nato troops from 11 allied countries, as part of an operation called Arctic Shield. Soldiers came from countries including Denmark, Canada, and France, for the alliance’s b...